Walkie-talkies, teen romance, hideous monsters … this animated series has everything that made the original series so lovable. It might go nowhere, but that’s not such a bad thing
Stranger Things takes us back to simpler times. The original Netflix series plonked us in a fantasy past where kids in small American towns rode bikes, chewed gum, listened to cassettes and played Dungeons and Dragons in their friend’s basement; or, if you weren’t American, it reminded you of movies you’d seen where that was the vibe. Either way, it was access to an era before the internet, 9/11, the banking crash, the pandemic and Trump, when life seemed easier.
The cartoon spin-off Tales from ’85 does something similar for Stranger Things itself. It rewinds to a happy, straightforward time, namely between seasons two and three. In that moment, the world of Hawkins, Indiana had been established, but we were yet to endure the show’s bumpy late period, when it got long and boring, then supersized itself and became breathtakingly spectacular, then lost control of the monster it had created and became both spectacular and boring at the same time.
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